i8godzilla wrote:Did I give you a long answer to a short question?
Actually, you gave me a perfect answer, and I thank you for it. I don't know if I draw the same conclusions, but I very much appreciate your giving me a reasoned and detailed answer. I wish more political discussion were like that.
Next question.... these are all primary decisions. Come November 2012, if Perry wins the nomination, will you likely vote for him despite your primary misgivings?
I am not settled on any one candidate, but I have eliminated some.....
For me, Romney is out. I feel the same way about his Romneycare (which actually
did become law) as you do about Perry's TTC. I know that he is allegedly pro-life, although he switched to that position in time for the 2008 elections. I don't know that he actually is convicted about it. I don't believe that he is a small government conservative, and I don't recall his having made any statements regarding the 2nd Amendment as an individual right.
Ron Paul is a gadfly. That's all he is. If Perry is at risk of being demonized by the press, Ron Paul is largely being
ignored by the press. Which is worse, from a political campaign perspective? If the
press vilifies you, that will automatically gain you traction among people who think poorly of the press. Being ignored is much worse than that. I suspect that his Iowa straw poll numbers were so high because his campaign bused large numbers of his supporters in from Texas—a tactic which they have been known to use in the past. I don't believe he's actually that well known, or supported, in Iowa.
Herman Cain is appealing because he is a conservative with management experience, but he comes off as a teacher, and we're not looking for a teacher. He can articulate conservative arguments, but so can most of the other candidates, all of whom are better known. We're looking for a charismatic
leader who supports conservative principles. He's not charismatic enough. He may be effective in the board room, but that is not enough if you don't have the personality for public office. Sadly, a certain amount of charisma is absolutely necessary, because policy aside, lots of people will support you simply because you're a rock star...........which is how a person short on experience but long on talk like Obama got elected.
I defended Michelle Bachman in another thread, but not because I am one of her supporters. I just took exception to the far left press (but I repeat myself) demonizing her for being an evangelical Christian, regaling the public with dark stories of "dominionism," the theory that the Constitution should be ignored if it conflicts with the Bible.......which, ironically is exactly the position her leftist critics find themselves in—advocating that the Constitution should be ignored where it conflicts with Marxist thought. But, in that same thread, I repeatedly stated that I am not a fan of Michelle Bachman's. The reason is that I don't believe she is possessed of the intellectual horsepower required to be a president. I don't think she's stupid, but I don't think she's smart enough, either.
Frankly, Charlie Crist, and for that matter, Chris Christie, are far too much to the center for my political tastes. That right there completely eliminates them from my consideration in a primary. Gary Johnson isn't even on my radar, and Jon Huntsman is eliminated for the same reasons you do.
That leaves Rick Perry. Let's unpack that....
I admit that I have not had live under his governorship as long as some of you. I can also tell you, having lived under successive waves of truly bad California governors, that Rick Perry is a breath of fresh air compared to some other states. Some view his having been a democrat in the past as a problem. I dismiss that concern.
I was a democrat in the past. My first vote as a republican was for Bob Dole against Bill Clinton. Morevover, Ronald Reagan, in many ways an outstanding republican president, was a former democrat who famously stated, "I didn't leave my party. My party left me." I changed my views and
became a conservative. Ronald Reagan was
always a conservative who
became a republican. Despite the existence of some very liberal democrats in Texas politics, I can tell you from a former outsider's perspective that many Texas democrats are NOTHING like California or New York democrats. Nothing at all. As more and more out-of-state democrats are moving into Texas following their jobs, that is changing, but there is still a strong core of that original version of Texas democrats hanging around. Bottom line, I don't consider Rick Perry's having been a democrat in the past to be a disqualifier.
I do believe that he is a political opportunist, but I also believe that, like Reagan, he didn't leave the party, the party left him. I would like to know what he has to say about having been Al Gore's campaigner in chief in Texas in 1988. He may have a perfectly acceptable explanation for that, including this one: "I don't believe the same things today that I believed then." I can relate to that one myself. But, I haven't heard his response to that question yet, and I would like to know what it is.
The Trans Texas Corridor and the PPV vaccine issues were huge blunders on his part. I arrived in Texas when both of those issues were brewing up and finally boiled to the surface, and I did not like either one of them. Neither decision on his part speaks to conservative values, and neither decision passes the corruption sniff test. That was also 4-5 years ago, and people change. I would like to see him questioned on both of those issues. They are legitimate questions, and I would like to see what he has to say about them in hindsight.
In the end, we are going to wind up with a flawed republican candidate, no matter who it is, because the primary is going to select the candidate
most appealing to the largest plurality of voters. Even if someone were to run against Obama in a democrat primary (I can't see this seriously happening), the democrat primary would yield a flawed candidate from
their perspective. I submit Obama's record since 2008 as proof of that
in 2008.
Unlike you, I think that Perrry
can beat Obama. If you look back to the 1980 election, the press ran roughshod over Reagan too. They portrayed him as a simpleton, and then throughout his presidency, they portrayed him as a puppet being played by dark forces, too stupid to be his own man. (They did it again with Bush/Cheney, BTW.) In the end, voters who were tired of being beaten up by Jimmie Carter's economy didn't give a cup of warm spit for the press's opinion of Reagan, and he won in a landslide. In this election, it's all going to be about jobs and the economy. That's about 95% of what people care about right now. Oh, they care about other issues, but they need to get back to work and put food on their tables, and so far, Obama has made their situations worse, not better. As governor of a state that has a better financial picture than most other states—
most particularly from the standpoint of public perception (regardless of what the numbers actually are)—I believe Rick Perry can beat Obama handily. He should include Ronald Reagan's famous line in his stump speeches: "Are you better off today?" The answer is a resounding "NO!"
There is one thing Rick Perry needs to change, and he needs to change it right away if he is going to succeed, and that is that he MUST stop speaking to residents of other states as if he were speaking to Texans. Calling Bernake's actions "treasonous" was really dumb. Telling Iowans that we would treat Bernake "ugly" down in Texas might resonate with Texans, but it might not please Iowans. Playing the provincial redneck isn't going to sell well in places where there are no provincial rednecks. He has to remember that his not running for a Texas elected office. He is running for the presidency of the United States. What sells well here may not sell well in Peoria.
My commitment is to the defeat of Obama. Period. At the end of the day, I will vote in the general election for whichever republican wins the nomination. I'm not a fan of John McCain's now, and I wasn't one in 2008, but I voted for him because he was the ONLY candidate who had even a prayer of defeating Obama. When Obama stated that he wanted to fundamentally transform America, I
believed him, and I did not like what he was proposing to transform her into. Obama has "succeeded" beyond my wildest fears. I will never vote for a third party candidate because they can
never generate enough votes to win, and their
only effect throughout the entire nation's political history has been to bleed votes away from the major party they are most closely ideologically aligned. I have developed some libertarian leanings over the past few years, but I won't vote Libertarian because that party has no chance of winning a national election, and their effect is to bleed votes away from the republican party—not the democrat party—and the republican party's candidates are the ones who have the best combination of
being able to win AND more or less representing my personal political ideals. Therefore, I will vote in the general election for whomever the republican party fields, because I cannot bear to see what my nation will become under another 4 years of Obama.
I believe that all libertarians ought to be smart enough to see that. If they vote the libertarian ticket in 2012, that is a signal that they are OK with 4 more years of Obama, because that is the
practical effect of their vote. Being ideologically pure is harmless in primaries, but it can be the death of a nation in the general election. Sober thinkers should give due consideration to that when they go to the polls in November 2012.
). You're fine with hamstringing all the things that drive the engines of capitalism. You're fine with radically increasing the capital gains taxes, even though it will discourage investment in an already weak market. You're fine with a national debt that my great grandkids will be paying off. You're fine with Chicago-style gutter politics in the nation's capital. You're fine with all those things, so long as gays can marry and pregnant women can off their babies when it's not convenient to be pregnant.